Saturday, May 6. Two things are dictating our Saturday morning. One, Avalon has to go see the doctor about her big toe that has been bothering her. I may have already mentioned somewhere that she had an ingrown toenail on her other foot and she thinks it’s the same thing, different toe. Two, Jun has to catch a plane from Itami to Tokyo and on to Baltimore, Maryland later today. We’ve been practicing how to say, “Hilton,” with him. He said when he stayed at a Hilton in Australia, whenever he said to the taxi driver, or anyone else, that he was staying at the Hilton, no one could understand him. It’s “hill-tuh-n” not “he-rue-toe-n.” While I’m at the doctor…
Golden Week: Takatsuki
Golden Week is a major national holiday in Japan. It’s a string of consecutive holidays in early May that are combined with another holiday in late April to form a solid block of time off from school and work. Business shuts down and everyone gets an extended break. This is our first Golden Week so we’re not really sure what to expect. But from everything I read, it’s crowded everywhere you go. The prices of everything having to do with travel are all jacked up. It sounds a lot like Thanksgiving vacation in America. I was thinking about where we should go for Golden Week when I got a text message from my cousin Mayumi up in Sapporo. She asked…
Concert in Rome
[This post is from Halyard. He promised to write a blog post about his school trip to Rome, Italy. It only took him two-plus months to get around to it, and only because it’s Mother’s Day (May 14).] Well, this has been a long time waiting, about a month in the making. Well, maybe a little more. It’s Mother’s Day and I’ve been asked to finally complete this report, and I’m doing it out the the goodness in my heart and the love I have for my mother. That, and I want to get back to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. However, this paper is not about how I’d like to spend my sunday afternoon, but rather how I spent a…
Guests and Gifts from Home
We’ve been busy lately. On Tuesday, March 28 my parents arrived from Riverside, California for one week. After they left we barely had enough time to get the laundry done before Avalon’s BFF and her mom arrived from Newport Beach, CA for one week. Then, overlapping with Avalon’s friend’s stay, we were asked by our school to host two visiting high school students from Seoul, South Korea. The Korean students are still with us but they are set to leave early tomorrow morning, which happens to be Sunday, April 16, Easter Sunday. My parents arrived with one suitcase full of goodies for us. The one thing I really wanted they actually brought for me — American kitty litter!!! The box…
Matsumoto-Jo
Saturday, March 25 is our last day at Hotel Khuls in Ichinose area, Shiga Kogen ski resort. It has been a grand time! John is torn between staying another night and going back because the snow is so awesome and he’s having such a great time. Halyard went home yesterday so we asked him to take a taxi and pick up the cats at the pet hotel and bring them home. So really, there’s nothing stopping us from another night away. One last delicious breakfast. The food has been plentiful and yummy during our entire stay. Some internet reviews complained about the selection but we (all 17 of us) thought it was terrific. John and I and the kids decided…
Snow Monkeys!
I so wanted to see Japan’s famous snow monkeys. When we arrived in Japan I did not know where the snow monkeys lived or if we could see them. I assumed they lived on Hokkaido where it is coldest, but when I told Mayumi I wanted to see the snow monkeys during our visit there she was surprised that they might live on Hokkaido. Oh, gomen nasai (sorry)! Bad guess. They actually live in Nagano Prefecture. There are several ski resort areas in Nagano, but one of the reasons I picked Shiga Kogen over the others is so that we would be closest to the snow monkey park. On Friday, March 24 we set out after breakfast. It turns…
Plowing Through Powder
Thursday, March 23 is a snowshoe adventure day! Our friend Nadia doesn’t downhill ski so she’s been hanging around watching the kids and looking for things to do. She wanted to go cross country skiing but it was difficult to find rental equipment and someone to guide us. It seems there’s a competition going on that has sucked up all the cross country resources. At last she was able to book a snowshoe expedition. The snowshoe guide said she would meet us at our hotel lobby at 14:00pm. That gave us some time to get in a few hours of skiing before lunch. The snow in Shiga Kogen has been amazing. We’ve been so lucky with the new powder in late…
Skiing Shiga Kogen
On Monday, March 20 we set off for Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. The kids are on spring break for about 2 and a half weeks. I looked at how to get from Osaka to Nagano about a half dozen different ways. We settled on taking the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Nagoya, which took only 50 minutes. We barely made it though because John and Halyard had to take the cats back to the pet hotel in the morning and then they caught a taxi to the station. I was driving the poor Japanese ticket lady crazy because I couldn’t decide which train to buy tickets for. I wasn’t sure if John and Halyard were…
Discovering Seoul
The boys are so lucky to have this year at Osaka International School. The school organizes spring camps for the middle school and upper school grades. They get to go with their classmates on field trips to fun places that would be on anyone’s tourist agenda. This year, Kaiyo and his grade 8 classmates rode the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima. The trip cost 45,000 yen ($400) for 2 nights and 3 days, all inclusive except lunches. They spent the first day at the atomic bomb museum and peace park. In the evening they had a talk with a survivor of the atom bomb blast at their hotel. They spent the second day on Miyajima Island, hiking, exploring and eating….
Mata Ne Sapporo!
See you again, Sapporo! We said good-bye on Sunday, February 12. Here are some final fun shots around town. Avalon saw some Hello Kitty neckties at this Sanrio store and she thought they would look good on Uncle Chris. Hello Kitty is everywhere in Japan. Even on construction sites. These HK barrier holders below are keeping the fence in place around a street construction project. Above: These bananas looked very festive and yummy. We thought for sure they must be frozen bananas on a stick, like in America. We’d seen them at other festivals but never got one. The kids and John decided to buy one. Guess what – they are not frozen bananas. They are chocolate and sprinkle…